The Big Picture: A Road Somewhere

The squiggle on the map looks interesting-a road that, judging by the tightly packed contour lines, loops off Utah's Route 12 into some of the wilder parts of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. But it's the name of the road that caught my attention. How can we not take a road called Hell's Backbone? Mrs. MacKenzie, bless her, shrugs and says okay. I bring the Porsche Cayenne's ride-height setting back up to normal, switch the air suspension to comfort mode, and head off along the gravel.

This 38-mile road was built in the 1930s, and at the time was the only connection between the town of Boulder and Escalante to the southwest. It climbs to more than 9000 feet, skirting the northern edge of the vividly named Box-Death Hollow Wilderness. The highlight is Hell's Backbone Bridge, a 109-foot-long, 14-foot-wide structure-with only vestigial guardrails-that spans 1500-foot drops on either side. Mrs. MacKenzie, who doesn't like heights, is very quiet as we drive across. The bridge is 8822 feet up in the still, silent mountains, and the blood roars in my ears as I grab a few photos.

There's a patch of frozen, deeply rutted snow on the road just past the bridge. I stop and jack the Cayenne up to the High 1, then High 2 suspension settings-giving me 10.5 inches of ground clearance-to get through without scraping the Porsche's underbelly. A mile or so farther, we're stopped by pine trees that have fallen across the road. There's no alternative but to turn around and drive the 17.5 miles back to Route 12 and the tarmac. But the views-and that bridge-were worth it.

We spent the previous day meandering up from Monument Valley, stopping off to check out the Natural Bridges National Monument, before heading northwest to the Capitol Reef National Park. The scenery was breathtaking. And the roads? A driver's delight, like Route 261, which took us northwest off Route 163 near Mexican Hat en route to Natural Bridges and ran straight toward what looked like an impenetrable escarpment. As we neared the escarpment, I noticed what appeared to be a knot in the trace on the Porsche's sat-nav screen. Then I saw the road zig-zagging straight up the face of the escarpment, almost winding back on itself in places. We climbed 850 feet in 2.3 miles. Or Route 95 from Natural Bridges, which swooped and swept, dipped and climbed through epic landscapes. I had the Cayenne loafing along at 80 or so; it felt quick, quiet, and composed through country that challenged the early settlers.

Surely, we thought, as we turned back onto Route 12, there couldn't be more. But not far past the Hell's Backbone turnoff, Route 12 runs along a plateau that narrows to a hogback barely as wide as the blacktop, with steep drops on either side-and no guardrail-just before it descends into the narrow Calf Creek canyon. At the junction of Calf Creek and the Escalante River, the road climbs up and out onto dramatic bare rock; from one viewpoint, it looks just like a Scalextric track laid out on your living-room floor.

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Beyond Henrieville, Route 12 turns north again, taking you right past the riotous rosy glory of Bryce Canyon. And just when you think there couldn't possibly be anything more to see, it dives down through the brilliantly hued Red Canyon before you hit Route 89, the road north to Salt Lake City.

I love cars, but not simply as inanimate concoctions of style and technology. I love the freedom they give you to explore, to take you to new places, see new things, meet new people. There's always an interesting road somewhere. And a car-any car, it doesn't have to be the fastest, the latest, or the greatest-allows you to follow it.